Nebraska Judicial Education versus Science, Part Three

May 18, 2017 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

As I’ve mentioned before, Dr. Lisa Blankenau’s 2012 presentation to the seminar for Nebraska’s judges is not only at odds with the science on children’s well-being post-divorce, it’s at odds with itself. Time and again, she recommends the marginalization of one parent in the lives of the children and, although she never uses the word, we all understand that, in the overwhelming majority of situations, that parent is Dad.

Indeed, Blankenau herself seems to have recommended as much by her affirmative citation of non-existent “studies” plumping for the “Approximation Rule,” according to which, parenting time post-divorce would reflect parenting time during marriage. As the ALI’s “Principles” on the matter make clear, parenting time is defined generally as what mothers tend to do, with what fathers tend to do specifically excluded from consideration. In short, the AR is a rule to further privilege mothers in parenting time decisions and, as Dr. Richard Warshak pointed out, understood to be such by those commenting on it.